The Owens Bottle-Machine Company merged with the Illinois Glass Company in 1929.  The result was called the Owens-Illinois Glass Company.  The legal corporate name was changed to Owens-Illinois  Inc., when the company began doing more than just glass, such as manufacturing plastics.

Owens-Illinois changed its trade name in 2005 to O-I.  This was done to make the company more of a global company since O-I can easily be understood by anyone in any country.

The year 2005 was also important to O-I because that is when it opened the world’s most modern facility to manufacture glass in Windsor, Colorado.  Before then, there had been no new glass container manufacturers in North America for 25 years.

The trademark of O-I is the letter “I” inside the letter “O” superimposed on a drawn out diamond.  This is sometimes referred to as the diamond IO mark.  To the left of the mark you can find a one- or two-digit number which identifies the plant that manufactured the bottle.  You can find the date the glass item was produced by looking to the left of the mark, where you can find a one- or two-digit date code.  When you see a bottle marked like that, it most likely dates to the 1930s.

In the 1940s, the marking changes so the date was to the right of the diamond with a period after it.  The period is apparently meant to represent the 40s.

Today O-I produces glass containers in a variety of shapes in sizes for food, beer, wine, spirits, and other non-alcoholic beverages.  Their North American publication LookingGlass includes news about glass manufacturing, industry trends, and other information.  Like its founder Michael J. Owens, O-I is a visionary company constantly seeking new and better ways of improving its products.

The Fostoria Glass Company, makers of those beautiful commemorative bells, much to everyones amazement, didn’t even begin to offer them until the mid seventies.

Although they made gorgeous wedding bells, bells that would coordinate with some of their main designs and major colors, if you take a walk through the catalogs tht Fostoria puts out, you’re going to find that there are no bells appearing in them until about 1976-1977, when the first bells showed up, that matched four of their current patterns, the Richmond, Navarre, Sheffield and serenity.

Fostoria made bells for Christmas, Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, weddings, and other special occasions. They also made bells to coordinate with some of their major designs. Serenity came in yellow, blue and crystal. Navarre bells were in pink, blue and crystal.

January 1979′s catalog also offers a Mother’s Day bell which was made of an especially beautiful and thin blown crystal, with a picture of a child being held by his mother etched in an oval area that was beautifully framed by flowers with the date and holiday etched above it.

Likewise, in 1979, the Wedding bells began to be available, which were quite unusual in their making, wtih the top part of the bell being the brides upper portion and the bell area the flaring of the skirt of the bridal gown.

The very soft mistlike finish covered the top and about half of the skirt of the bell, fading out reminiscent of a bridal veil.

1981 saw a ruby bell offered with a "Twas the Night Before Christmas," theme with a frosted handle that was of crystal, and was one of four tht was limited edition, however it was the only one, to our knowledge tht was made with the crystal prior to Fostorias factory ceasing production.

According to one expert, there is also another 1977 bell which I"ve not seen or found that was a winter scene, wtih a horse drawn sleigh and pine trees that is dated in 1977, but I can not seem to find pictures or listing of it.

Fostoria bells have become prized collectors items for many who love Fostoria in all its glory, and since the bells were made for so relatively few years, they are in great demand. If you have one, hang on to it and if you’re looking be prepared to pay a price that could range from 15-50 dollars if not more..

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Is my glassware authentic or is my glassware reproduction? This is a question thats of paramount importance for many collectors and glass ware enthusiasts.

There isn’t a thing in the world wrong with reproduction glassware, so long as its apparent to the collector that he or she is getting reproduction glassware. When it isn’t made clear to you then it becomes problematic.

Just Glass has put together a list of the most common reproductions in glassware that are available to the buyer as well as how to spot the fact that what you’re buying is a reproduction and not necessarily an original product.

In this series of items Just Glass Online examines the articles that have been reproduced, how you can tel that the glassware may be a reproduction and what to look for to show you whats what in the glass ware world.

Art Glass

There are several sites that sell reproduced French Cameo Glass or Tiffany style lamps. These are in no way purported to be anything but a reproduction, with the company making that clear to the buyer. Taking a look at them will give you a heads up on what you’re viewing and what to look for to spot a reproduction however.

Tiffany Lamps.com

Oriental Vases:

The site listed below is one which openly states that they are reproducing oriental vases. The reproductions are spotted, somewhat like you might expect to see in Czech glassware products. They also have far less depth to them then you would expect in the genuine article. The authentic oriental will have the areas of color much larger and  the colors will appear quite nearly to flow together. Keep in mind that in oriental, the color is inside the glass, cased in clear. The reproductions have the color right on the surface.

Talaria Enterprises

If you’re interested in Depression Glass and Reproductions, Please see our Depression Glass Reproductions article, second in the Reproductions series, or the third item, which covers, Miscellaneous Glass Reproductions.

Tiffany Lamps and Oriental Vase Reproductions

Likewise, we’ve seen literally dozens of fruit jars for sale at yard sales which bear that embossing, that are absolutely more modern than this be highly overpriced because someone thinks they have something special.. In reality they may, but its just as likely that they don’t.

Manufacturers in America produced glass jars using the 1858 embossment  as lately as 1920, which is still, in reality, quite old, but its not 150 years old.

Historians who have studied these think that Crowleytown’s Atlantic Glass Works,which was locted in New Jersey made the first of this incredibly lengthy series of mason jars.

According to the experts, there are multiple ways to date your antique bottle or jar.
Quite possibly the best way to do so is finding… or not finding.. a pontil scar.
A pontil scar is a noticable ring of glass or a black and red sort of an indentation that will tell you that a glassblower held your jar on a rod while it was hot, while the neck of the jar was placed on it and hand finished. Usually jars or bottles with pontil scars were made before 1855, although that isn’t a hard and fast rule.

Another method to determine the age of a jar is checking out the mold seams on it. Some of the earlier bottles and jars were blown without a mold, and won’t have one, while those with a mold seam that goes just to the lip will tell you that  your bottle was blown into a mold and then was completed by hand, meaning that a top or neck was added.

Jars that were made by machine, which is usually most of them made after 1915, will have a mold seam that goes all the way up to the top.
Some of the very avidly produced reproductions of fruit jars were those made in 1858.
The mid seventies saw multiple and avid attempts to forge those jars with some of the production taking place in Kentucky or Tennessee reportedly.

Much of the time, the collector would note immediately that there was something wrong, with either color, ground off tops or some other anomaly.
 Some of these you can know by the mold number which is often  851 on the base of your item.
The forgeries were made in multiple colors including cobalt blue, green, black and even olive green.
NOt all of them of course will have the 851 number.
The forgeries have some very bright colors and the glass has a unique shine to it. that will tell you its not an original, but in spite of that, some of these forgeries are selling quite well and you may see a few of them getting prices like 50-75 dollars, amazingly enough..primarily, perhaps because of the colors.

A great book on the subject of canning jars is available on Amazon and you can even find them used for keeping the price lower.

Alice M. Creswick. The Fruit Jar Works. Volumes I and II. D.M. Leybourne, publisher.  Not a price guide.  P.O. Box 5417, North Muskegon, MI 49445.

Collecting old bottles is something not many people do think about, but its quite a fascinating study in the history and evolution of glassware. It can entail purchasing from collectors or antique dealers, or something as simple as a walk in the woods.

MY own fascination with antique bottles and jars came about quite by accident, while taking a walk one day through the back woods of a very rural Pennsylvania community near Titusville Pennsylvania. Near our home, quite by accident we came across an old graveyard that was nearly buried in underbrush and overgrown with trees, and near it, a home that had been abandoned for what looked then like eons.

Lying in a heap on the ground were literally hundreds of bottles, jars, some half buried in silt and mud, others above the ground. Being somewhat less than prissy when it comes to something making me curious, I of course had to take a closer look at all the brightly colored glass on the ground. This was well before I collected anything at all in point of fact.

Scattered on the ground were glass bottles labeled bitters, different spirits, old milk bottles and so on. This was of course, probably in the mid seventies and well before we thought that recycling was the way to go.

I picked up a few  bottles and took them home,  along with a couple of glass and a sort of ceramic looking  insulators  which had,  I assumed  come from the telephone and power lines above my head and began to do a bit of digging into their history. Some were from a local company, a dairy,  who told me that bottle had been used more than thirty years in the past. . Others had dates fortunately and were dated some forty or fifty years past. It was a veritable treasure trove of history from my area of Pennsylvania. 

bottle1710

Glass bottle collecting is a walk through history, and can offer you a glance at how we’ve evolved, the types of glassware we’ve used and how thngs have changed just in the past fifty years. It’s an amazing hobby that has given me a lot of enjoyment, and a taste for those brightly colored bits of glass that you can only find containing things like spirits, medications and creams.

Wine bottles, medication bottles and jars, spirits and creams, the array of older bottles and jars out there is endless and the colors and types of glass are just amazing. It’s a hobby that doesn’t require a vast outlay unless you want it to, you can find many of these older bottles at yard sales, on ebay or at a church rummage sale, so you’re probably, unless you get into it fairly deeply, not going to expend a vast sum of money in the beginning, but will have something unique with each purchase.

For those of you who might be interested, there are several great books out there to help you to get started, and Ebay of course, to get your collection in motion.

There are several definitive books on the collection of old bottles and jars to get you started , among them:

Antique Glass Bottles: Their History and Evolution (1500-1850) by Willy Van den Bossche, Email: wvdbossche@planet.nl This is an incredibly comprehensive guide to all sorts of bottle collecting, but particularly the European ones. The photos are crisp and clear, the text is easy to read and its a great desk reference for you. No matter what you collect this will help, but particularly if y ou’re a bottle collector or simply want to know a bit more about historical glassware.

American Stoneware Bottles is the only publication dealing with the  early hand made American stoneware bottles. There are about 107 pages containing information on over 1,500 stoneware bottles, with many being identified as to location and date. Illustrated with numerous color, black&white, and line drawings of these early pottery items   $24.95 with shipping of $2 per book.

Kovels’ Bottles Price List by Ralph and Terry Kovel.
The 13th edition.
Excellent guide for someone who is relatively new and wants to see and get prices for the more common types of bottles.

Collecting antique bottles and jars is not for everyone, certainly not for those who don’t want to put any real research into those collectibles, but you’re a digger, like I am, and want to spend a bit of time actively working with your hobby, this one will keep you quite satisfied.

 Libbey Glass Company began their business life named the New England Glass Company.
They produced a wide variety of glassware, and in the end expanded their business to sheet glass and windshields, but are more widely known for their cut glass and shaped drinking glasses.

The company was, in the beginning producing multiple items including mercury glass, colored art glass, pressed glass, and a wide array of things like doorknobs and railroad lamps.
The glassware of the Libbey company was quite often decorated with gilding but was  also  decorated with cutting and engraving as well, making it well sought after.

Though the products were quality,  the company found itself in over their heads financially and was sold in 1877 to William Libbey, and was renamed accordingly, and when the purchaser passes away just five years later, it was passed along to his son.

 Edward Libbey moved production to Toledo, Ohio in 1888, where raw materials were readily available and was instrumental in making Toledo Ohio synonymous with glass production.

It was also at this point that the company became more lucrative, with the invention of a machine that could do a great deal of the world.. Workers were fired and the company, while popular, became less so in the immediate area.

(excerpted from History of Ohio )" The Libbey Glass Company became even more profitable after Michael Owens, an inventor from Newark, Ohio, joined the firm. Owens developed a machine that could automatically produce bottles, tumblers, and glass chimneys. This invention dramatically increased production. It also lowered manufacturing costs, as the company was able to fire workers now that machines could do the work instead."

The sword under the  old signature in Libbeys glass mark is their silent nod to the renowned city of steel,  Toledo, Spain, from which the name of the city in Ohio originates.

Libbey hired Joseph Locke in 1882, who was a designer from England to take over the design works and while he worked at Libbey he patented several items that are quite collected .  Some of those items include Peach Blow, Maize and Pomona,as well as Amberina, the Victorian era glass that offers the very distinctive amber to red shading as its trademark

 Libbey produced it  right up to the new century.
 It was a difficult type of glass to make since the red shading came from the use of actual gold and it was costly to make, making it quite expensive to produce, but it did give the company recognition world wide.
 In the 1920s, Amberina was in production again for a short time, and is signed quite often so the collector can identify it.

Libbey was  also the number one producer of what was called  Brilliant Cut glass from about 1878 to 1915 or 1916.The Brilliant cut was extremely highly leaded, and rumors had it using as much as sixty percent lead in the formula for its creatioin.
Lead softened the glass, making it easier to cut and added sparkle, weight and giving it that wonderful clarity of ring when lightly struck.
At the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904 the company won prizes for exhibitions of their fine glass.

The war years were slim for everyone and LIbbey stuck to making hard to break glassware for hotels and restaurants, however in about 1933 they began producing fabulous stemware, which today is sought after for collection world wide.

 The designer Douglas Nash, a former Tiffany’s man, was employed to breathe life into the  market for hand crafted high-end stemware.
 Some of the new offerings of the Libbey company that were made under Nash’s tutelage included  the Art Deco  stems, among them American Prestige, Knickerbocker, Syncopation (an ice cube shaped stem, is one of the rarest to find  today), and Embassy. Embassy was an eagle-and-star etch  that was designed especially for the US Pavilion at the ’39 World’s Fair.

The Silhouette line c.1933 by Douglas Nash had a different animal decorating the stem of each type of glass including cats, greyhounds and monkeys, with each different type of glass featuring a different animal.
 The Silhouette glassware stems came with a selection of colors: black, opalescent, or frosted crystal.

The Skyscraper stemsare very collectible and one type of Nash’s designs, the Victoria cameo etch, took more than 80 hours of engraving per glass and sold for about 2000 dollars per dozen glasses. This of course wasn’t a big seller during the depression and production of it ended in 1935.
All of these glasses, including the Brilliant cut are sought after by collectors today and fortunately with the companies mark, can be readily identified.
Libbey glassware has left its mark on collectors and given us a great deal to look for.

Little did anyone know that they would design the machinery to produce milk bottles via automation. This operation launched them into glassmaking history in 1905.

By 1920 Thatcher sought out various glass companies to add into the foundational organization. To this end Essex Glass, Lockport Glass and Travis Glass were purchased along with Woodbury Glass common stock, and two milk bottle businesses! This put Thatcher glass in the enviable position of making half of the milk bottles in America, along with a healthy portion of condiment items.

Five years later, the Thatcher plants could create over 150 million bottles a year! Unfortunately in the same year the Federal Trade Commission demanded that Thatcher sell the other glass interests due to Fair Trade laws.

In 1927 Thatcher stock became available on the Stock Exchange. Even with the minor setback, it was still the largest milk bottle producer in America with nearly five million in sales that year!

Now, from a collector’s standpoint this high volume can be frustrating. On the other hand, the bottles were considered everyday items (and as such got discarded or broken, helping with collectibility).

In the 1930s the paper industry began to eek away the glass bottle industry for milk. With this awareness in hand, Thatcher sold various operations, and bought/opened others throughout the 30’s and 40’s, doing relatively well with glass needed for alcohol and pop.

Also black glass or opaque glass tableware was well received. This flexibility gave Thatcher staying power, and in the 1950s they diversified into plastics! So, one might say that plastic is the “new glass” (at least for some companies!).

To view some truly elegant glassware pay a visit to Swank Glassware.

Overall Hazel-Atlas jars weren’t overly remarkable but for a few. In particular collectors should watch for Atlas Strong Shoulder Mason (which was designed to have a durable neck to keep it from cracking, and typically came in a blue hue).

There’s Atlas E-Z seal (a lightning jar with a raised lip also intended to strengthen the jar), and a third jar – the Atlas H over A Mason jar. These three items kept Atlas among the largest of the jar makers in the 1940s alongside Ball and Kerr.

Be aware, however, that if you see a jar marked Atlas Mason, this is likely a new product by a new Atlas company on the market.

Some items for which to be on the watch include:

• Amber E-Z seal
• Light Green E-Z seal
• Atlas Mason patent quart
• Atlas SS (green)
• Special Mason (blue)
• Pint size (blue green)
• Oil-vinegar cruets
• Milk glass Storage jars
• Toddy sets (often amethyst)
• Marmalade jar and spoon sets
• Butter churn
• Cobalt Depression glass creamer
• Colony bowls
• Refrigerator jars
• Tumblers

Serious investors may wish to get a book 1000 Fruit Jars: Priced and Illustrated,” by Bill Schroeder. This is available from Collector Books, P.O. Box 3009, Paducah, KY 42002-3009 (also online at Amazon) and is a great resource in helping distinguish the Atlas jars that have sustained value vs. those that aren’t worth much more than a dollar.

Be aware that if you see a jar marked Atlas Mason, this is likely a new product by a new Atlas company on the market

You can find out more about Atlas Vintage canning jars by visiting Answers.com Atlas Jars.

Themes like the circus were popular design patterns for early glass cookie jars.

However, the original jars used for biscuits and cookies were made in glass, the American ones bearing metal screw on lids.

These first US jars have cylinder shapes, and were often hand-painted with designs from nature like flowers. Any items found like this predate 1930, which is when stoneware became the popular cookie jar material.

Don’t let the date dissuade you. There are still plenty of glass cookie jars to be found out there, in all price ranges. A few items for which to keep your eyes open:

• Mayfair glass jadeite green cookie jar
• Glass animals (like a rooster) often in frosted glass (1940s-50s)
• Ruby red biscuit jar
• Amber or green depression glass cookie jar
• Yellow glass beehive style cookie and candy jar
• Mayfair pink depression glass cookie jar
• Fruit shape (like pineapple) – the opaque style dates around 1950 (may be decorated glass)
• Anchor Hocking pumpkin cookie jar
• Bartlett-Collins (decorated glass manufacturer including theme jars such as Dutch Children)
• Milk glass cookie jars
• Victorian art glass (red, blue) cracker/cookie jar
• Hazel Atlas clear cookie jar
• Federal Glass pink jar
• Imperial Glass (OH) sometimes with bamboo handle
• Mr. Peanut jar
• Biscuit “barrel” style jars

Glass cookie jars are fun to collect!

Chips and cracks decrease the long-term value of any piece unless it’s very, very desired or rare.

Also original lids are a huge boon. Keep these safe and make sure you have the right lid on the right jar to maintain your investment (and increase it over the years).

You’ll have a great time collecting these vintage glass cookie jars!

But it hasn’t been that way just for modern people trying to save money and make healthy meals for their family. Ball has been synonymous with cans and jars since 1880, beginning in Buffalo New York.

The first Ball glass jar came out in 1884, followed by glass oilcans in 1888, and the first box of wooden jars (by the dozen) in 1894. This is rather exciting in that it marks the first time any item was shipped by the dozen to grocers.

The Ball Company created a machine specially designed to create their jars in 1897, followed by a wholly automatic machine at the turn of the century. This was also the period in which Ball began to acquire other glass companies including Swayzee Glass, Upland Glass, Marion Fruit Jar & Bottle Company, Port Glass Works, and Loogootee Glass – all by 1904! Five years later, the very first Blue Book was published.

After the company name change, more acquisitions occurred including Noblesville, Schram Glass, Pine Glass and Eaton Strawboard Mill. This allowed the Muncie Ball plant to take its place as the biggest rolling mill in the world.

For cooks out there, a pressure cooker reached the market from Ball in 1935 but didn’t last more than 6 years. Come 1955 the canning and freezing jars (Can-or-Freez) came to the market, followed by quilted jelly glass in 1965. And, in 1970 Ball closed its Muncie home canning plant and moved its operations to a zinc plant in Greenville TN.

There are a variety of items that a Ball collector may wish to watch for. Early jelly jars, which began production in 1920 seem quite popular, and incredibly charming. Generally anything produced before 1922, when the company changed its name to Ball Brothers Company, also has strong market value.

Jars marked “Perfect Masons” or “Ball Ideals” (both blue glass) go for about $5.00 each. The clear variety sell for no more than about $2.00 unless you find one either with a misspelling, one that’s a square jars (worth about 2x as much), or any original jars from Buffalo NY (the value of these vary by item).

The variety of Ball jars is what attracts most collectors; you can easily dedicate time and space to just one label.